September 21 - Events

Events

• 1217 – Livonian Crusade: The Estonian tribal leaderLembitu and Livonian leader Kaupo are killed in Battle of St. Matthew's Day.
• 1435 – An agreement between Charles VII of Franceand Philip the Good ends the partnership between theEnglish and Burgundy in Hundred Years' War.
• 1745 – Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
• 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnoldgives the British the plans to West Point.
• 1792 – The National Convention declares France a republic and abolishes the monarchy.
• 1827 – Joseph Smith, Jr. is reportedly visited by theangel Moroni, who gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Smith has translated into The Book of Mormon.
• 1860 – In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Baliqiao.
• 1896 – British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan.
• 1897 – The "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial is published in the New York Sun.
• 1898 – Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform inChina.
• 1921 – A storage silo in Oppau, Germany, explodes, killing 500-600 people.
• 1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing 3,036 people.
• 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.
• 1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people.
• 1939 – Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by ultranationalist members of the Iron Guard.
• 1942 – On the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, Nazis send over 1,000 Jews of Pidhaytsi(west Ukraine) to Belzec extermination camp.
• 1942 – In Poland, at the end of Yom Kippur, Germans order Jews to permanently evacuate Konstantynów and move to the Ghetto in Biała Podlaska, established to assemble Jews from seven nearby towns, including Janów Podlaski, Rossosz andTerespol.
• 1942 – In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.
• 1942 – The B-29 Superfortress makes its maiden flight.
• 1961 – Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.
• 1964 – Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
• 1964 – The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's first Mach 3 bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.
• 1965 – Gambia, Maldives and Singapore are admitted as members of the United Nations.
• 1971 – Bahrain, Bhutan and Qatar join the United Nations.
• 1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signs Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
• 1976 – Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet.
• 1976 – Seychelles joins the United Nations.
• 1981 – Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.
• 1984 – Brunei joins the United Nations.
• 1989 – Hurricane Hugo makes landfall in the U.S. state of South Carolina.
• 1991 – Armenia is granted independence from Soviet Union.
• 1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.
• 1999 – Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.
• 2001 – Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
• 2001 – AZF chemical plant explodes in Toulouse, France, killing 31 people
• 2001 – America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the September 11 attack victims.
• 2003 – Galileo mission is terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.